Some of My Favorite Examples of LGBTQ+ Representation in TV, and Others That Leave Something To Be Desired
Photo courtesy of Heckin Unicorn
In 2021, for the first time in 5 years, there was a decrease in LGBTQ+ characters in TV shows. This was partially because many shows with queer characters came to an end in 2020, and partially because not very many new characters have been written as LGBTQ+ in more recent times. Hopefully, 2022 brings brighter horizons for the future of queer representation in both films and TV. But despite the recent decrease, there have still been a multitude of characters who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community that have made a significant impact in the last 20 or so years. So, to commemorate some of my favorites amongst those characters, and pave the way for even more to come, here are five of my favorite instances of LGBTQ+ representation on TV, and five more that I think could have been handled better.
1. (Favorite) David Rose - Schitt’s Creek
I truly have nothing but good things to say about this show, and this character. David Rose was a revolutionary pansexual character that hit out TV screens in 2015, and right from the get-go the creators of the show– as well as David’s actor Dan Levy– established a healthy dialogue about David’s sexuality. One moment that truly sums up just how revolutionary this character has been comes from pretty early on in the series.
After a female character named Stevie sleeps with David one night, the two talk about the events of the previous evening while buying wine. At first, Stevie incorrectly assumed David was gay, and while looking at the selections of reds, whites, and rosés at a store, she decides to express her thoughts to David. She says “Just to be clear, I’m a red wine drinker. I only drink red wine” By this, she is metaphorically saying that she personally only likes guys. Then she says to David, “And up until last night, I was under the impression that you too, only drank red wine.” Then David starts to understand what she’s saying. In response, he says, “I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back I tried a merlot, that used to be a chardonnay. I like the wine and not the label.”
I think that last line is one of my favorite lines of television ever. “I like the wine and not the label.” The way David explains his sexuality here was pretty important, because it was done in a way that doesn’t try to oversimplify anything, but also doesn’t make his sexualtiy seem abnormal. Nowadays, you can easily find this scene on the internet by just looking up “wine scene” and it’ll come up in suggestions. This goes to show just how revolutionary this moment was for queer, and specifically pansexual representation in TV, which is why it is one of my favorites.
2. (Room for Improvement) Kevin Keller - Riverdale
When I was in 7th grade, this show was, like, godly. To watch Riverdale in 2017 was to be in the loop about all things interesting. And while the first two seasons were very watchable by critics’ and audiences’ standards (according to Rotten Tomatoes) the queer representation was lacking in quality from the very beginning of the first season.
I think a line that sums up what the show defined Kevin as is one from the pilot episode. Veronica Lodge, the new girl, is getting toured around school by Betty, the girl next door, and her friend Kevin. Kevin swoops in when Veronica asks what the social scene is like. He says, “A strip club called the Ho Zone and a tragic gay bar called Innuendo. Friday nights, football games and then tailgate parties at the Mall-Mart parking lot. Saturday night is movie night…and Sunday nights, thank god for HBO.” Betty introduces the two of them after he finishes his speech and says, “Veronica’s is new here and Kevin is-” to which she is interrupted by Veronica saying, “-gay, thank God. Let’s be best friends.”
Now, there is a lot of stuff I find disconcerting about that entire interaction. Starting with the attempt at spoofing “Walmart” with “Mall-mart”. Because brand ownership. But obviously the most upsetting line in this is Veronica saying, “-gay, thank God. Let’s be best friends.” It just feels like the writers didn’t even try to hide that they were just trying to establish Kevin as the stereotypical “Gay Best Friend”. Not to mention, for the first couple seasons, all his storylines involved his sexuality, which to me is a red flag. In my opinion, something that differentiates good representation from bad queer representation is whether a character is a “queer character” versus “a character that happens to be queer”. It's great to show off diversity in shows, but if the character only seems to exist for the purpose of the show being able to say that it has diversity, then I feel like they are doing something wrong. While the character of Kevin has developed more and more as the seasons progressed, I think he was established in a less than ideal way at the beginning of the show, which limited him to only a set number of possibilities for his character, and for that reason, I think this character definitely left room for improvement.
3. (Favorite) Annalise Keating - How To Get Away With Murder
Now, before even touching on the queer representation in this show, I would just like to say that I love the show for its plot and characters as well. It’s really well-written, super intense, and as far as TV shows go, it's some of the best acting on a 45-minute TV-14 show that I’ve ever seen in my life. This is in part because of the insane and immaculate performance that the female lead, Oscar winning Viola Davis, gives in each and every episode. She plays Annalise Keating, a ruthless defense lawyer, who also happens to identify as bisexual.
What makes her character so ground-breaking is the way her sexuality is portrayed. It is, in plain, everything Kevin Keller is not. In the best way possible. The bulk of her storylines have nothing to do with the fact that she is bi, and the few that do are ones that I think bring up a great dialogue and acknowledge struggles that many bisexual people have dealt with. As a character, Annalise tries to deny that she likes women, and struggles to grapple with the fact that her bisexuality is a part of who she is. But by the end of the show, she comes to a head with her identity in a powerful line in the penultimate episode where she says, “Who I am is a 53-year-old woman from Memphis, Tennessee named Anna Mae Harkness. I'm ambitious, black, bisexual, angry, sad, strong, sensitive, scared, fierce, talented, exhausted - and I am at your mercy.”
I think the journey Annalise goes on as a character with her sexuality is one that a lot of people can relate to. Fear of other people not accepting you is one thing, but fear of you not accepting yourself is another. And it’s something that people identify with, so I think seeing Annalise’s journey to come to terms with her sexuality was extremely important.
4. (Room For Improvement) Cyrus Goodman - Andi Mack
Okay, so, I’m gonna throw it back for this one. I personally was a huge Disney Channel fiend all the way through 6th grade. So in 2017 when Andi Mack came out, and the characters were literally my age, I sat down every Friday to watch.
While the writing may have been dramatic and the acting wasn’t always the best, it was a show that I loved. Part of the reason for this is because it was the first Disney Channel show that had a gay character as part of the main cast. His name was Cyrus Goodman. He was very expressive with his hands, very flamboyant in the way he dressed, and was written to look purposefully stupid whenever he tried to act like a stereotypical “straight guy”. As a middle schooler, I didn’t realize how stereotypical his character was, because I was just happy there was any queer representation at all. But as I got older and looked back on the show, I realized that this show was to queer representation what Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb was to Indian-American representation. By that, I mean that it was great to have a main character identify as part of a group that lacked representation, but by making the character stereotypical, it worked to convey stereotypes to a whole ‘nother generation.
While it was great that Disney Channel wanted to be more diverse with the sexuality of its characters, I just wish they had gone in a slightly different direction with Cyrus. Maybe, instead of making him stereotypically overly-expressive, along with him being the “best friend” of the other two main characters, it would have been cool to see an LGBTQ+ character that acted against stereotypes.
Nevertheless, Disney is getting better and better with their representation. The show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series has a gay couple in it, and the main character has two moms. In both these relationships, there’s a lot more to the characters than just their sexuality, so I’m really glad Disney is making strides on that front.
5. (Favorite) Raymond Holt - Brooklyn 99
This is another one of my favorite shows to exist on this Earth. It quite literally got me through quarantine. And what’s great about it is that on top of it being hilarious, and current, and culturally diverse, there are also multiple characters part of the LGBTQ+ community, and my favorite of all of them has to be Captain Raymond Holt of the 99th precinct.
Captain Holt is a black gay man who starts off the show as the new captain of the police precinct the show takes place in. He had to work especially hard to become captain because of the prevalent casual racism and homophobia that he had to combat during his time on the force. Despite everything he faced, he rose through the ranks, and finally became captain in the show.
What I love about Captain Holt is that, throughout the show, he isn’t presented as a stereotype of either a gay or a black man. He is always himself in every situation, which is a testament to the writers of Brooklyn 99 and their ability to write well-rounded characters. This representation is especially important given the nature of the show it is a part of. Brooklyn 99 is a super well-regarded workplace sitcom. It sits in the same universe as shows like The Office and Parks & Recreation. So to have a show like that with such diverse queer representation being normalized is, in my opinion, incredibly important and special.
~~~Stay tuned for part 2 of this series!~~~